Fifteen #3
“Maybe we should check in the back?” I suggested. “The app says he’s here… or at least his phone is. And that’s where the light is coming from.”
“Or maybe we should get the hell out of here,” Jude offered instead.
I ignored the uneasiness in Jude’s voice and moved around the counter toward what seemed to be a back room.
The frozen custard machines were flicked off, the frozen dairy cases backlit with lowlight.
I felt the hairs on the back of neck stand up. My heart thumped in my chest. Was the killer here now?
Ready or not…
Was this a trap?
Then the overhead lights flicked on and I tensed.
“Found the light switch,” Jude declared.
My heart pounded. I was relieved and annoyed all at once.
A clatter drew my attention to the far back of the restaurant, where I saw the back door open—and slam shut.
“Stop!” I cried as I jumped over the checkout counter near the register and slid across the fake marble, hitting the ground on the other side at a run.
“Stop!” I shouted again, running toward the back door, and whipping it open.
I took one step out of the door and saw the red brake lights and the wooden back paneling of the white vintage Wagoneer.
Rage thumped in me.
This damn car.
I was so tired of it.
I was so tired of everything it represented: evil men doing what they wanted with no thought of consequences because they knew they’d never have to face them.
Well, not today.
This man, this time, wasn’t getting away with it.
I leapt onto the back bumper as my hands reached for the silver luggage rack on top. I pounded on the glass with the meaty part of my free hand just as the driver hit the gas and flew down the alley.
I heard a muffled shout from a terrified Jude, somewhere behind me, but I was too angry, too awash in adrenaline to care. I held on to the Wagoneer as it sped past the dumpsters and trash cans behind Gordon’s Frozen Custard.
The Wagoneer took a hard right onto Main Street, and my sneakered toe slipped off the chrome bumper. Shortly after, the other followed, and then I was dangling by both hands.
My palms screamed bloody murder as I held on to the luggage rack, fingers getting sweatier by the minute. The cold dawn air made the metal frigid and hard to grasp. And my sneakers could get no traction on the slick back bumper.
Okay, well, maybe this wasn’t working out as I’d planned.
Who am I kidding?
I had no plan.
The worst part about this was Oscar would tell me I told you so. Oscar would never let me forget either, and instead of saying Remember swim lessons? or Remember that time you fell through the ice?, he’d say Remember that time you jumped on a serial killer’s car?
That was, if I lived.
If I didn’t, he’d be telling this story at my eulogy.
We’re gathered here today to talk about my impulsive little sister, Thin Ice, a magnet for trouble who never once learned to look before she leapt…
The thought of Oscar delivering my eulogy gave me the kick in the ass that I needed.
With pure willpower, I managed to scramble back up, getting a toehold on the bumper, just as the Wagoneer swung left, nearly sending me into a parked car.
One hand flew loose, my fingernails skimming the side window of a silver sedan, before I managed to whip myself around and reestablish my grip.
And this made me angry again.
Why was this asshole trying to kill me? Why did he think he was so special that he got to walk around killing people?
Fresh righteous fury boiled over in me.
I tried to grasp the latch of the back tailgate, but I needed a key to open it. I banged on the back window, trying to peer through the darkened glass to see the driver. He was the cause of this. He was the problem. He’d always been the problem.
The Wagoneer hit the curb near the kayak rental shop, knocking over a planter of golden mums and sending small pumpkins rolling down the sidewalk. The driver knocked me straight into a FALL INTO… FALL! flag hanging from a vintage lamp. I pulled it off my face, and it whipped back away from me.
That almost felt like a stunt move, perfectly executed for a camera somewhere.
Just like one Mateo could do in his sleep.
I filed that fact away for later when I wasn’t holding on to a Wagoneer for dear life.
The morning sun glinted off the docile waves of the lake ahead of us.
I tried to get a better grip on the car, but my hands kept slipping.
I hung on with sheer will. I planted a toe on the back ridge of the tailgate and pushed myself up.
Getting on the roof of the car had to be less precarious.
I flattened myself on the top of the luggage rack, one hand on either railing, lying flat on my stomach and wondering What the hell do I do now?
Wind whipped my face, the cross bar on the luggage rack dug into my solar plexis, and the vantage point from on top of the roof was only slightly better than at the back of the SUV.
I banged on the roof near the driver’s head.
“Stop this car!” I shouted, but the driver ignored me and instead stomped on the gas, blowing through a red light and straight toward the wooden dock.
The front bumper hit the PEDESTRIANS ONLY boardwalk sign, sending it flying to the water.
And then the tires hit the wooden planks with a thunk, thunk, thunk.
The boardwalk was long but barely wide enough for the SUV, and we were headed for the water. We were headed very fast for the water.
This might be it.
Oscar at my funeral.
And then, just when I was sure the Wagoneer was going to make a stunt-scene-worthy jump into the waves, the driver hit the brakes, screeching the Jeep to a halt.
I desperately tried to clutch the top railing, but there was no arguing with g-forces and gravity.
One second I was plastered to the roof of the car, and the next I was flying, airborne for what seemed like a year of my life, before I crashed into the frigid waves.
And I was seven again, ice-cold water punching the breath from my lungs as I sank beneath the surface.